…So What’s Gonna Replace iPods?

Dorian and I have had some very interesting conversations lately. Not that our conversations are generally disinteresting, but the topics we’ve been discussing lately have been particularly amusing.

One topic has been discussed with intense frequency – the younger generation, particularly the things that have changed since we were children and the things that will be different when our children are our age. Dorian and I are both in our early thirties and our three children are all under the age of five. Things like this:

And this:

And this:

will mean absolutely nothing to them. It will be like us looking at our parents’ and grandparents’ vinyl records, Betamax and Vegemite and wondering how they enjoyed technology so archaic, as if using the word “technology” to describe their equipment is an insult to the word.

Each year Beloit College publishes “The Mindset List“, which reflects the world view of entering first year students. It started with the members of the class of 2002, born in 1980. I like to entertain myself by reading each year’s list, and I often find myself shaking my head at the advancements that technology has made.

How do you view getting older? Do you look forward to the advancements in technology, medicine and society? Let me know, leave a comment below!

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6 thoughts on “…So What’s Gonna Replace iPods?”

I read an interesting blog where a father listed things his son will never know as a teenager, including landline phones, hard drives instead of solid state drives, desktop computers, and many other things.

What I enjoy most about technology is the efficiency it allows. Instead of driving around in circles because I’m lost, I can quickly find directions on my phone. Instead of sending letters to family across the world, I can email them or better yet, jump on Skype or FaceTime and communicate immediately. Instead of fast forwarding through a tape to my favorite song, I just select it on my iPod.

All those things are great. What still gets me though is when people act like they can’t function without technology. For example parents that have to buy their 10 year olds cell phones so they can call them every minute of the day. “But what about when they’re walking home? They could be in danger. I need to be able to speak to my child!”

I walked home every day as a child before cell phones existed and I managed to survive. Most of us also managed to lead fulfilling lives without a constant stream of Facebook and Twitter updates too..

It infuriates me when I see young people who are a fraction of my age, who have barely entered puberty, walking around with cell phones – but not just any cell phone, most likely one that is more advanced than mine! While I agree that technology has its advantages, it is often times taken for granted and misused. Just the other day I had a conversation with a young cashier who giggled her way through her recollection of an instance where her register lost power and she had to manually ring up customers’ items and figure out the total. She was amused with the fact that she screwed up her register because she didn’t know how to use a calculator! Now, I don’t know what’s worse – the fact that she thought it was funny that she couldn’t do her job, or that she relies on technology so much that she can’t perform basic tasks without it. But that glimpse into our world’s future left me shaking my head.